


We'll Be Fine, We're Fine, We're Fine, We're Fine

by TheAutotheist



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: And swears a lot, Angst, Bucky goes crazy before becoming the Winter Soldier, Captain America: The First Avenger, He was kind of tortured after all, Heavy Angst, Internalized Homophobia, Introspection, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:01:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheAutotheist/pseuds/TheAutotheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky was not okay. </p>
<p>He made it through being tortured and experimented on, only to be rescued by his best friend, who couldn't possibly be his best friend. Because his best friend had never looked like that. And it woke up all kinds of feelings and thoughts that Bucky never wanted to have.</p>
<p>This was never going to end well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Be Fine, We're Fine, We're Fine, We're Fine

**Author's Note:**

> This story could alternately be called "If Our Love's Insanity, Why Are You My Clarity?" because I am obsessed with that song almost as much as I am obsessed with this shipping.

It was wrong, all wrong wrong wrong. The face leaning over him was Steve but wasn’t Steve. It had the same shape, those were the same eyes, those beautiful blue eyes, and the same mouth, and his hair fell over his forehead in the same way, but it was wrong. Bucky couldn’t figure out exactly what about it was wrong, and then he realized it was too full. The Steve he knew, _his_ Steve had always been too skinny, could never get enough to eat. This face hovering over him belonged to someone who finally could.

It wasn’t the first time he hallucinated Steve, through all the whirring and lights and _painpainpainpainpain_ until he was reduced to only name, rank, serial number. Name, rank, serial number. Name, rank, serial number. Over and over again, just wanting it to stop. Sometimes he imagined Steve was watching. Sometimes he thanked God (if he even listened at all, the bastard) that Steve wasn’t here, could never be here because he doubted the army would ever be desperate enough to take him.

But then Steve, or hallucination Steve, or whatever the fuck this was, helped him stand and he got a good look at him, and finally a look around the room he had only briefly glimpsed when they had first dragged him from the group of POWs and brought him here. It was dark, all the machines were off, and while he didn’t really want to stand or walk, or do anything, the horrible burning _painpainpainpain_ was gone.

Steve clapped him on the shoulder and then moved his hand to the side of his head. Bucky looked up— _up_ —at his face, and saw the pure relief, the happiness. No one could fake that. Hell, he doubted even his own mind could fake that. And he also doubted his mind could come up with a Steve that looked like this. God, he was built like a fucking tank.

“I thought you were dead,” Steve said, still with that stupid happy look on his face.

“I thought you were smaller.” It was the only thing his mind could possibly process. He just couldn’t wrap his brain around a Steve that was taller than him, that was not only more than skin and bones, but was covered in muscle.

Steve half carried and half dragged him out of the room. And wasn’t _that_ new and different as well? He carried Bucky like he weighed nothing, like Bucky had always carried him, when he let him. It was so jarring that Bucky insisted on walking under his own power. He rolled up his sleeves and watched Steve’s back as they made their way out of the isolation ward. He listened to Steve’s explanation of the serum and the procedure, at least the bare minimum of it. He promised more details when they weren’t running for their lives, and Bucky was damn well going to hold him to that. Because this kind of stuff didn’t just _happen_ to people.

What came next was a bit of a blur, especially as he partially thought he was hallucinating the whole thing and still strapped to that table. Watching some guy tear off his own face was not a point in the “this is real” column. After meeting up with the other escaped prisoners, some who he knew from the 107th, and some he recognized from their time in captivity together, they marched for a mile or more to put some distance between them and the factory. Steve finally called a stop so they could check on the wounded and take stock of their supplies. Bucky wondered, in a vague, delirious sort of way, if a tank that shot blue disintegration beams counted as a supply.

Bucky knew he was running on adrenaline, and that was the only thing keeping him on his feet, especially since he couldn’t remember the last time he ate. With a shock, he realized he didn’t know how long he had been strapped to that table. He watched in amazement as Steve gave orders and people _listened_ to them. They never questioned that he was in command. The whole time, Bucky stayed by his side, and refused to be moved from that spot.

“Fine,” Steve huffed in exasperation and forced him to sit down at the base of a tree, and sat beside him, though what Bucky did was more like dropping that sitting.

He let his head thump back against the rough bark of the tree because he didn’t think his shoulders would be able to support the weight anymore. At some point during the escape, his brain had just given up on trying to understand how Steve got here, how he got to looking like that. Instead, he said, with exasperation of his own, “You’re fucking impossible, Rogers.”

He heard Steve shift beside him and waited for the reprimand that was sure to come because Steve hated when he swore. And after that reprimand, Bucky was all prepared to tell him to shove it where the sun don’t shine. But Steve didn’t say anything, so Bucky let his head roll sideways, still supported by the tree, so he could see Steve’s face.

And that was a mistake.

This close, Bucky could see every detail of Steve’s face, every smudge and cut, every lock of blond hair, the way his blue eyes shined, just _shined_ in the dark. He could see the thick muscles in his neck and could only imagine all the muscle under his clothes from the way the jacket and the uniform underneath hugged his body. Everything about him was so perfect, just gorgeous.

Huh.

That was also new. It wasn’t like he hadn’t thought Steve was pretty before. But he’d always thought that was because Steve was so tiny. If he’d been a girl, he’d’ve been petite, though Bucky would never call him that to his face. Mostly cause he knew Steve would try to punch him. And whenever Steve tried to punch anyone, it never ended well for him. But now he looked like the perfect example of masculinity. And the word that came into Bucky’s head was _gorgeous_.

And he didn’t know what to do with that, with the little bubble of _want_ blooming in his chest, from just watching Steve. Before, any desires he’d had to touch Steve, to kiss him, he could justify since Steve was smaller. But he still wanted to kiss him, even though he looked like a god damned super hero. In fact, Bucky wanted to kiss him even more. When he was strapped to that table, he had thought he would never see Steve again, and even if he wouldn’t let the thought come fully developed to the front of his mind, he regretted never taking the chance just to see what kissing Steve would be like. So now that Steve was sitting here right next to him, after Steve had gone through hell and high water to rescue him, all Bucky could think about was kissing him until he couldn’t breathe. He wondered what Steve would look like with lips bruised and swollen.

But Steve chewed on his bottom lip, clearly worried about whatever it was Bucky had just said before his mind completely derailed. He hoped to God that none of what he had just been thinking showed on his face, because he didn’t know what he would do if anyone found out about the very wrong wrong wrong thoughts he’d been having about his best friend.

So he said, “Tell me how you got like this. How you got here.”

Steve glanced over at him, and didn’t seem to react with any kind of shock, so Bucky supposed he couldn’t tell that he had just been thinking about all the things he wanted to do to him. Steve sighed and then began to talk and talk and talk. He said all kinds of things, and Bucky tried to picture it all, from the basic training (which was easy since he’d been through it too, though without the asthma) to the weird pulp science fiction-style medical procedure that turned him into a super soldier, to the shows he did to sell bonds, to sneaking into a Hydra base and practically making it crumble single-handedly.

After a while, his head started to bob on his neck, and he knew logically, in that part of his brain still functioning, that he was probably dangerously closer to passing out. Steve stopped talking abruptly and then jumped up and hurried off before Bucky could stop him, even though his earlier pledge had been to stay by Steve’s side the whole time. It felt like an eternity before he returned, but it was probably less than a minute. He held a canteen up to Bucky’s lips and helped him slowly drink the best damn water Bucky had ever tasted in his life. Bucky finished off the whole thing in one go, and then Steve offered him some dried something or other, which Bucky chewed, even though he couldn’t taste it.

When he finished, he did feel better, if he was forced to admit it. Steve sat facing him and just watched him the whole time. When Bucky realized it, he looked straight back into his face.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked. It was the first time that question would be posed to him, and it was the only time he gave a reasonable answer.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Lot better now that we’re out of that place.”

Steve smiled, just a bit, the smallest tentative smile, and Bucky once again thought how much he wanted to grab him and kiss him. But he didn’t.

Instead, he insisted on walking on his own two damn feet with the other soldiers who weren’t wounded. He stayed by Steve’s side the whole time and marched with him right into base camp. And when people started cheering as they walked by, Steve turned to him briefly and smiled, just for him.

The medics helped the wounded first. And they had brought back a lot of men, so Bucky hoped they would ignore him. But eventually they made the rounds of every soldier who was captured. When they found out Arnim Zola had been experimenting on him, they were practically tripping over themselves to “examine” him. But they couldn’t find anything wrong. Aside from being a little dehydrated, he was physically fine, no lasting damage that they could see.

And people kept asking over and over again, “Are you okay?” Every new person he talked to would start with “Are you okay?”

If he was in a good mood, he would give them a mumbled “Yeah,” but by the end of it, all they got out of him was “Fuck you.”

When they couldn’t find anything wrong, they were forced to clear him. He was put on medical leave for a week, like the other POWs, but they still expected him to return to the war after that.

Steve was waiting for him outside the medical tent after he was finally cleared. And of course the first thing out of his idiotic mouth was, “Are you okay?”

“Do I look like I’m not fucking okay?” he snapped. “Why does everyone keep asking?”

Steve looked shocked, and then hurt, and then regretful. And now he felt like an asshole, because Steve was worried about him, like he’d always been worried about Steve. He remembered all those times sitting by his bedside when he was sick, just praying over and over, “Please be okay. Please be okay.” And while Steve didn’t like anyone fussing over him, he put up with it from Bucky a lot more than from his mother.

Bucky sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Sorry. Yeah, I’m fine… Cleared and everything.”

Steve smiled tentatively. “It’s okay, Buck. Guess it was a dumb question.”

He was so damn innocent, and so perfect. And all Bucky could think about was kissing that perfect mouth, and doing not-innocent things to that perfect body. All he wanted was to make Steve fall apart until the only thing he could say was Bucky’s name. Which was obviously a problem, so he shut that thought down.

At the base camp, they gave Steve his own tent, though Bucky wasn’t sure if that was cause he was a captain, or cause he was Captain America. Bucky spent a lot of time hiding out in there rather than deal with any of the other men in his unit. Steve never tried to kick him out, even when it got dark. He let Bucky sleep in there on the floor. The first night, he tried to offer Bucky the cot, but Bucky had scowled at him so hard that he relented. It was exactly the kind of thing Bucky would have done for Steve back in Brooklyn when Steve was sick. The nostalgia crept up his throat like bile.

No matter what he told people, Bucky was not okay. However what plagued him wasn’t a physical injury, but regret. He felt like he was mourning the loss of his friend, even when he was looking right at him. He had lost the Steve he left behind in Brooklyn. And it wasn’t fair to Steve for him to think that way. Because what kind of a person was he to deny this new strong body Steve now had? He finally could breathe on his own, he could take on bullies with his own power, and people listened to him, like they always should have. But Bucky still wanted the old Steve back.

Because when they were living together, he took it for granted. He had Steve all to himself because no girl would look twice at him, even though he always considered it their loss. It didn’t matter where Bucky went or who he chose to spend time with, or how drunk he would be when he stumbled home, because Steve would always be waiting for him, and would let him talk about his latest exploits. But now he could have any girl he wanted. And Bucky saw the way he looked at that dame from SSR, and the way she looked at him. Steve even cracked a joke at her, the same Steve who before could barely say two words to a girl without tripping all over himself. It was all Bucky could do to desperately try to draw Steve’s attention back to himself, to remind everyone that Steve was a god damned hero. But still, Steve stared back into that woman’s eyes while everyone around them cheered, and Bucky couldn’t help but drop the arrogant smile he had given Steve.

And he never realized how many excuses he had made before just to touch Steve. Every time Bucky had to clean him up after a fight, maybe he let his fingers linger longer than necessary on Steve’s face. And those nights when it was so so so cold, and they had no heat, and it didn’t matter how many blankets were piled on Steve. He could never get warm. So Bucky would climb into bed behind him and hold him close to his chest, sharing body heat. He would never have the excuse to hold Steve in his arms like that again, cause this new Captain America body would have no problem staying warm.

So yeah, Bucky hid out from everyone and mourned silently. He regretted never realizing how he felt or what he wanted. He mourned the loss of his friend. He mourned the loss of the Steve he he grown up with and had grown to lo--

He stopped that thought as soon as it came up. It was going to pop into his brain like a fact, like an accepted truth, even though it was something he had never even thought to consider before Steve had rescued him from the Hydra factory. But now he couldn’t _stop_ thinking about it. Because he was in love with his best friend, and that was never ever ever going to end well. And clearly he was far more fucked up than he had ever realized. He couldn’t even blame it on the experiments and the torture. There was something wrong with him. There had to be something wrong with him.

Bucky was not okay.

He would watch Steve fall asleep and then he would dream of everything he wanted to do to him. He dreamed of fantasies and missed opportunities. He dreamed of all the chances he had to kiss Steve when he just didn’t. Even he thought he was becoming a bit obsessed.

And then one night he didn’t dream of Steve.

Instead he dreamed of bright lights and _painpainpainpain_ and Arnim Zola’s twisted face, and words he couldn’t understand and screaming and screaming and screaming. And it was his own screaming, even though he swore he wouldn’t scream. And he was trapped. He was still strapped to that table. And all he wanted to do was just die. Just let him die already.

He woke with eyes blown wide, and thrashing arms and legs that were enough to nearly kick Steve off the cot he slept on. And then Steve was down on the ground with him, looking at him with wide eyes and his hands on Bucky’s shoulders, trying to hold him still, trying to keep him from shaking. Which couldn’t possibly be real, because he was still strapped to that fucking table.

Slowly things came back to him and the shaking subsided. He just stared into Steve’s blue blue eyes that were filled with so much concern for him, only for him. His lips were moving, and finally Bucky could make out words that were in English, not the German that kept running through his dream.

“It’s okay, Buck. I’m here. I’ve got you...”

How could he ever forget that? Even when he had nothing, he always had Steve, even though he had changed so drastically. So Bucky did the only thing that made sense to his brain in that moment. He grabbed fistfuls of Steve’s shirt and surged forward to crash their lips together in what was perhaps the most awkward kiss ever. It was too sloppy and too wet and too much teeth. And Bucky really couldn’t care, cause it was everything he had ever wanted.

Bucky knew that in about thirty seconds he would seriously regret this decision, and his choice to ruin their friendship with this. But at the moment he couldn’t possibly care. And before he had the chance to actually start regretting, _Steve kissed him back_. And it was even better than anything he could have ever imagined.

“Wanted this for so long…” he thought, or Steve said, or he said.

But it didn’t matter who thought it or said it, because the other person said, “Me too.”

Bucky wrapped his arms around those broad shoulders and kissed him until his lips felt raw and he couldn’t breathe. And it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough. He had to know how Steve felt, how he tasted. So he dragged his teeth along Steve’s neck and lapped at all the exposed skin he could get to.

He yanked off Steve’s shirt and ran his hands up and down his chiseled chest. He trailed his tongue into every curve and groove, working his way down, and he swore Steve was trying hard not to groan, but was doing a bad job of it. Bucky undid Steve’s pants and dove his hands in, and then Steve really couldn’t stop the moan that escaped his throat. Bucky grinned wickedly because he was the one making Steve make that noise.

He dragged Steve’s pants down and was unsurprised to see he was already fully erect. He remembered the times girls had gone down on him and the things they did that he liked, so he tried to replicate that on Steve when he took him into his mouth. Steve seemed to like it, cause his hand suddenly gripped Bucky’s hair, and he stuttered out, “ _B-Bucky…!_ ”

And oh god, that practically made him come, the way Steve said his name. He wanted to do whatever it took to make Steve keep saying his name like that. That was all he wanted. He didn’t even care it was wrong, or that it couldn’t possibly end well. Just as long as he had the chance to make Steve fall apart with Bucky’s name on his lips.

So later, much later, when he fell off the train, he wasn’t surprised. Even though a second before, all he had been thinking about was reaching out to Steve. All he had to do was grab his hand, but then the piece of metal he was clinging to gave way and he was plummeting to his death. Once he knew it was the end, he realized he wasn’t surprised. Because it never was going to end well for them. They never could have a happily ever after.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from. The more I wrote it, the angrier Bucky got. 
> 
> I was reminded of lesbian pulp novels from the 50s. The characters could have sex and be together, and the authors could depict lesbian relationships as much as they wanted, but in order for the books to be published, the characters either had to die at the end, or they had to realize they weren't actually lesbians, and would settle down with a nice man and have kids. They weren't allowed to have a happily ever after.
> 
> So I liked the concept that Bucky could accept a homosexual relationship, because he knew eventually something awful would happen to stop it, so he didn't have to make an effort to stop it himself.


End file.
